All About Meat

Based on last week's blog and other stuff I am interested in I thought I would make my blog about food and nutrition.  I haven't really decided how exactly I will blog about it - bullet points?, recipes?, surprising facts?, most likely some of each.  This week I think I will provide some interesting and surprising facts about meat.

• People in the United States eat about 1/2 (0.5) of a pound of meat a day (8 ounces). In Africa people eat 1/16 (0.0625) of a pound of meat a day (1 ounce).  In certain quantities meat is healthy, however in the quantities that many Americans eat it in is dangerous to the body.  Red meat can lead to heart problems and diabetes, and animal products in general are really high in sodium - which is important to help regulate water but too much of can cause a high blood pressure.
• The global production of pigs and poultry has quadrupled since 1980.  The number of cows, sheep, and goats has doubled. 
• 70% of the world's farmland is used for livestock production.
• The conditions in which major suppliers of meat produce raise the animals are so unsanitary that it is likely the meat is contaminated with disease or waste in some way.  The animals are so packed in that the animals' feces can get on the animals and wind up in the meat that is bought at the store.  Cases of meat with E. coli or salmonella have resulted in deaths.
• The raising of these immense numbers of livestock contributes to climate change.  Livestock creates around 18% of the planet's green house gas emissions.  From the processing, packaging, transportation, to cow gas, it all contributes to green house gases and global warming.

I'm not saying that everyone should become a vegetarian or a vegan and I like a hamburger as much as the next person, I'm just saying that the amount of meat people that most people in the United States (as well as some people in other countries) is really harmful to people's health.  I just think that we need to scale back on what we are eating and how much of it we are eating.

 

 A meat processing plant

 

Chickens being raised for slaughter

 

 Information from Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating (by Mark Bittman), BBC News, The New York Times, and Time Magazine

Image Sources: Meat processing plant
                        Chickens
                        Another picture to consider looking at, I find it a little bit gross though

The Most Delicious Black-Eyed Pea Salad

Last summer, my mom made this black-eyed pea salad and it quickly became one of my favorite foods.  Whenever we go to a friend's house for dinner we always wind-up bringing this salad and it always is one of the first things to be finished.

I thought I would put the recipe on my blog (click here to go to it!) as my post this week.  It is really quick and easy to make and it is really delicious!  You should definitely make it when you get the chance (and once tomatoes are back in season).

Also, it calls for canned black-eyes peas.  Sometimes I feel like those are kind of salty so I recommend just cooking up your own black-eyed peas when you make the salad.

Image Source: Black-Eyed Pea Salad

This New Post Assignment About My Passion or Something

So today I read this article from the Washington Post called Montgomery County students adjusting to healthier school lunches.  This article sort of inspired this post, but their only real connection is the main topic of nutrition and the role schools play in it.

I'm into the whole healthy eating thing.  I've read some books on different nutritional philosophies and how the human body was made to eat (small amounts of food throughout the day) and what it was made to eat (grains, with all their nutritional values still packed in there, and less than 3 ounces of meat and animal products in general a day, according to Mark Bittman).

Anyways, the point of this post is not to give some lecture on what you should be eating.  I just want state a sort of opinion on the issue revolving around child obesity.

This is where the article I read plays in.  The article talks about how some Montgomery County schools have been introducing healthier school lunches.  I am a big supporter of this, especially because I believe what kids eat at school is a factor in child obesity.

At my school, and at my past schools, the lunches have all been the same.  Greasy pizza (wet cardboard with stiff cheese), nachos (stale chips with oil), slurpees (wonder where those are made...) and so on.  None of these include essential nutrients, or seem particularly appetizing.  These foods, which kids consume once a day for 5 days a week, some more than that if they buy breakfast at school, make up a good percentage of kids' food intake.  These foods are not particularly healthy and they send the impression that these are the foods that one should regularly be eating.

I know this has been kinda disjointed and all so I'll try to sum it all up real quick: I think that if people really want to do something about the child obesity issue it needs to start in the schools, with the schools only offering healthy and nutritional foods, not just some "alternative" that kids are encouraged to take (or required to take but just throw away).

                                     Is this really the best they can do... really, what is that????

Image Source: Gross School Lunch